Author: Jocelyn

  • In a Funk

    In a Funk

    “How can it smell so bad? We just showered you yesterday!” As I stand in the kitchen sniffing my fingertips, Byron is incredulous. Bruno Mars is still backstage polishing his loafers, yet there is some serious funk going on. I press my fingertips to my nose, and it is a testament to my steel stomach…

  • I Want to Hold Their Hands, Part 2: A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-Home Father and English Teacher

    I Want to Hold Their Hands, Part 2: A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-Home Father and English Teacher

    Below is Part 2 of my friend Andy’s “Day in the Life” essay, detailing his hours as a stay-at-home father and English teacher. This one focuses on the teaching. If you missed Part 1, you can read it here. ———————– When we finally get home, I see that it is almost 2 pm. This means…

  • I Want to Hold Their Hands, Part I: A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-Home Father and English Teacher

    I Want to Hold Their Hands, Part I: A Day in the Life of a Stay-at-Home Father and English Teacher

    A few weeks ago, when I posted “Salt on the Road,” a rundown of a day in my working life, I put out a call to others: I love knowing what people do for their work; more specifically, I wondered if there was anyone who would be willing to write an essay detailing his/her daily…

  • White Knuckles

    White Knuckles

    Clatterplunk. Every night we hear it above our heads: the rolling of the office chair as it’s pushed away from the desk, the thump of a plate being grabbed off the wooden desk, and the predictable punctuation of clatterplunk as a fork hits the floor. These sounds tell us something: the fifteen-year-old is on the move. Having eaten her dinner in…

  • Warm Fuzzies

    Warm Fuzzies

    When I was in 4th grade, my class went through a careful, deliberate, rigidly enforced process of loving each other. Such was the climate in the mid-1970s, an era when feeling groovy was a cultural mandate. At some point during 4th grade, our teacher, Mrs. Ring, talked to us about the notion that “sharing is love.” In…

  • Wherein My English Teacher Rightly Hangs Me Out to Dry

    Wherein My English Teacher Rightly Hangs Me Out to Dry

    During sophomore year of high school, my English teacher was named Mrs. Rice. We can’t accuse Mrs. Rice of being overly fond of the redhead in the second row. As I review the work I did in her class, it is apparent that Mrs. Rice was a seasoned teacher. I wasn’t the first “Look at me,…

  • Dear God, I Love You

    Dear God, I Love You

    One of my first friendships was with a neighbor girl, Susan. When we were two years old, our mothers decided we should be friends. So we were. As we were coming up, we loved each other hard, yet we had terrible battles. A kid who was innately a people-pleaser, averse to conflict, I was always caught…

  • It Would Be a Few More Years Before I Learned About Parallelism

    It Would Be a Few More Years Before I Learned About Parallelism

    I’ve been sifting through boxes of memories — the accumulated papers from my youth. As I grab each handful of faded pages, drunken journal entries, glowing fourth grade report cards, conflicting judges’ sheets from speech meets, crude first grade drawings, crazily folded letters, I am pulling more than paper onto my lap. Each handful takes…

  • I Tried to Get Pinteresty and Ended up Drinking a Box of Wine

    I Tried to Get Pinteresty and Ended up Drinking a Box of Wine

    Listen, I didn’t drink all three liters in one sitting. The last thing I’m in the mood for is wiping vomit off the hardwood. (Note to self: make Pinterest vision board of photogenic approaches to mopping up half-digested ravioli) Trust me, I did pace myself with that box of wine, never downing more ounces than…

  • Salt on the Road

    Salt on the Road

    Grey sky hangs low, a cinder block compressing the horizon. Lifeless, yawning fields spread to the left; decaying tillage muddles the acres on the right. The car flits past a “Did You Know? My Heart Beat 18 Days from Conception” billboard, then another, this one taking the tack of “My Doc Says I Could Smile Before…